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There's been quite a media hullabaloo over the the revamped DSM-5, the so-called 'Psychiatrist's Bible', and the way it demonizes normality.
For instance, grief is now considered a mental illness...if it lasts longer than a fortnight.. You read that right: If your life partner up and dies on you, you'd better be over it in two weeks or else you're mentally ill. If your child dies, don't be such a Debbie Downer: hey, in two weeks you can start trying for another one!
Or let's say you've got cancer. If your doctor thinks that your cancer is bothering you a little too much (because after all, it's only cancer), presto! You've got cancer and you're sick in the head.
Then there's 'Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder', which is what your kid has when he throws a temper tantrum. I'm sure pills for that 'disorder' will be forthcoming and that may please some harried parents. But most of us -- including, you'd hope,…

Playoffs. Us long-suffering Leaf fans can be forgiven a little giddiness and confusion...aren't those things for other teams?

Not this year. For the first time in this Breadbin's history, the Toronto Maple Leafs are in the playoffs.

The wags will tell you it's because the season was short this year, and being as Toronto is only capable of playing half a season, well, it stands to reason. To which I say: so what. Every other team played the same 48 games, and for once the Leafs are at or near the top of the league in categories other than giveaways and goals against.

Without further ado, the grades:

GM DAVE NONIS B

A gentle breath of fresh air after Burke's bombastic boorishness (though ya gotta admit ol' Burkie was entertaining as hell), Nonis seems to be all about removing obstacles for his players to succeed. The team was beset with a LACK of success going into the season, LACK standing for Lombardi, Armstrong, Connolly and Komisarek; all four were traded, demot…

Three times I have started to write this blog. Three times I have deleted it and started over.

Boston is not an easy thing to write about. First, there was for quite some time a serious lack of credible information. Conspiracies breed like rabbits in an environment like this, especially since there are many people with political agendas perfectly willing to twist what facts there are to fit their narrative. I like to think I'm not ready for a tin hat, but I am willing to entertain the notion that things aren't always as they appear. Entertaining that notion has led me into some pretty dark places over the past few days, let me tell you. I won't link--these people don't need the attention--but there are more than a few people convinced the Tsarnaev brothers were framed, that this was actually an inside job perpetrated or at least aided and abetted by the U.S. government.

There's a kind of logic in the insanity of that assertion, the same kind that sustains the 9/11 …

In a stunning victory predicted by no one, some nobody named Justin something-or-other came out of nowhere to become the leader of the federal Liberals. I mean, seriously, Justin Trudeau? Who dat? The media has been strangely silent.

Even my non-Canadian readers can probably recognize the sarcasm. The truth is that the Canadian media has been all over Justin Trudeau like white on snow for years and the leadership convention the Liberals held was a waste of everyone's money and time, because Trudeau's coronation was assured the moment it became clear Michael Ignatieff would lose the last election--which was about thirty seconds after the writ dropped.

The Liberals, the once (and future, so they devoutly believe) Natural Governing Party of Canada, have veered wildly between a farce and a tragedy since they were inexplicably (to them) booted from office in 2006. The sense of entitlement, and their refusal to recognize same, positively oozed out of the party over two ensuing elec…

In response to the question "what to do about Rehtaeh?" -- a question many Canadians are asking themselves -- she opines,

"The first thing to do is to resist the urge to vigilante justice[...] Rehtaeh could be your daughter--but those boys could be your sons. Let's not ruin more lives with a rush to judgment."
Really. Margaret? You, a conservative who champions the notion of personal responsibility, are asking us not to "ruin more lives" just because the people whose lives we're thinking of ruining merely gang-raped a 15-year old girl and then plastered her all over the Internet?
Forgive me --no, don't--but wouldn't you say those boys ruined their own lives? I would. I would say that those boys followed up one illegal act (underage consumption of vodka) with a much, much more serious of…

Yesterday's blog was not up to par, for which I apologize. Though I haven't succumbed to the allure of Twitter--truth is, I don't even feel it--it seems like I'm having some trouble lately organizing my thoughts into coherent sentences and then organizing the sentences into coherent paragraphs, which is, to my mind anyway, the defining characteristic of a Twit.
I feel random thoughts tugging me in all directions (how exactly did that Blue Jays reference get in there yesterday, anyway?) Distractions, distractions everywhere. And the blog journeys are getting shorter and shorter as my mental fuel economy declines. It's probably time for a mental tune-up.

What I was trying to say yesterday was concisely and elegantly put by Russell Brand in an otherwise very critical eulogy" in The Guatdian
which accuses the deceased of destroying the British idea of community:

"This demonstrates, I suppose, that if you opposed Thatcher's ideas it was likely because of th…

...because I obviously don't belong in it.
The vitriol surrounding the death of Margaret Thatcher is a frightening thing to behold. "Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead" is #27 on the British iTunes download chart this morning. It isn't because The Wizard of Oz aired in Britain last week.
In several Internet fora I have posted the following:

You know, folks, it's okay to dislike, or even to hate, Margaret Thatcher's policies from her time in office. It is not okay to hate *her*, and it is *certainly* not okay to cheer at her death.

Some people have agreed with me. Some. But there's been quite a bit of this:

Yes you can, she was innately evil and any hatred is justified. Who cares if someone is a human being if they're utter rubbish as one?

I'm reminded of the death of Jack Layton and Christie Blatchford's nasty anti-elegy penned before the body was cold. You don't have to be liberal or conservative to be rude and unseemly: just human, it seems.